


Where Are You Going?

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Family, Family, M/M, Parenthood, Rating May Change, Siblings, Tags May Change, north sees mysteries where there aren't any, not sure who will be major characters yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-05-29 18:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15079058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: Nic 'North' Draktos is a nice college guy with hopes of becoming a teacher and maybe a published mystery writer. Perhaps that means he jumps at strange goings-on that probably aren’t really mysteries. Yet there’s this one guy he keeps seeing around campus, and he doesn’t know what to make of the guy. And the ‘mysterious’ Marcus 'York' Cunningham? Well, he’s just an overworked, probably slightly overpaid guy working his hardest to support him and his younger brother after their world fell apart a while ago. But together they might be able to solve the question of where life goes from here.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well this sure turned out to be more than expected. I promised myself I wouldn’t start something new. And yet here we are, something new. I have no clue how long it will be. I just know I’m exploring this. Basically, I made a post on tumblr about how it would be nice to have a variation on a Hot Dad AU, with York as the parent. 
> 
> I have no idea when there will be more, it will happen as the world allows because I'm still recovering from a torn rotator cuff. You wouldn't think it, but such an injury makes it HELLA hard to type for any length of time.

Oddly enough it’s not the motion that really makes him stand out. Apparently people really aren’t good with the early morning classes, because there is almost always one or two coming through the door just before the start of class. In the front of the room Professor Halliday watches sharply for anyone to be tardy, a pen hovering over a piece of paper to take down the names of those to earn his ire and a classwide mocking. Well, the former happened, but despite Halliday’s threats the latter hadn’t come to pass. No one wanted to be the one giving that shame, in case it might be for them. So it isn’t the motion that draws Nic’s attention, no. It’s the fact that Professor Halliday doesn’t speak up. There’s a brief glance from the mustached man, and then… nothing. No note taken, no comment, just Professor Halliday starting into the morning lecture. 

Notes are important, Nic reminds himself of that, tries his hardest to focus only on the lecture. It’s a dry class at best, the material far from Nic’s wheelhouse, but in a liberal arts school you took what classes you could get to deal with mandatory course load before throwing yourself at your major. Which was why Nic was here, at eight in the morning, trying to learn statistics from a man who couldn’t keep his voice above a low drone. Notes are important, Nic reminds himself as he sips at his overly caffeinated coffee, it’s only that he doesn’t know that he can keep paying attention. In addition to Halliday being Halliday… well, the guy that walked in. 

The guy sits in the back corner. Very back corner. Like no way he isn’t getting out of the room first, and Halliday doesn’t let anyone sit there. Nic tried it out a week back just before the first class, and he knows it’s more than just something the Professor hates, it’s unstable. The seats in here are the old sort of metal with poorly padded backs and bottoms covered with a fabric that feels like sandpaper on the skin. Worse, the bottoms of the seats fold down when used, and flip back up to vertical when not so people can get through the aisles. And that particular one, unless someone managed to change it out in the last week, was almost off its hinges, the thing was almost falling off. That the guy would hover there was mind-boggling. That Halliday allowed it was something else. 

Lord help him, he has to know more. Which is what gets Nic quietly getting to his feet. It’s not like Halliday isn’t just going over examples of a concept he’s already gone over a few times in the last ten minutes. Not his fault, really, the class is basically created for freshmen and non-majors, so he takes it relatively slow. Faster than high school would have, but still slow enough. And Nic? Nic has to get a look at the man, which means quietly slipping up the aisle, trying to keep from disturbing people as he executes his escape all for the point of catching sight of one person. 

He’s handsome, that’s what Nic gets from the quick glance at him as he moves quickly and quietly up the aisle. His brown hair is almost artfully tousled, his soft gray eyes focused intently on Professor Halliday’s lecture. The mustard yellow shirt he’s wearing has the school logo on it, like the ones in the campus bookstore, and a small stain on the collar that might be grease. Without looking the man is writing quick and highly detailed in a notebook at his side, but he doesn’t have the textbook with him like other students, he doesn’t have the handout from the previous night’s homework that will be turned in at the end of class. It’s a strange sort of mix of things that leaves Nic wondering more about this man rather than less. His face is young, probably not much older than Nic, so… senior year? On the other hand there’s a bag at his feet that isn’t really a book bag, more like a heavy satchel like those the faculty use, almost matching identically to the one Professor Halliday has up on his desk. 

After he gets out of the classroom Nic strolls to the fountain. Needs to take up a believable amount of time, and to be honest his mouth is a bit dry from the coffee. Gives himself a bit of a breather, wonders just why it is this guy is caught in his mind. It’s the mystery, he decides, and Nic has always loved a mystery. Nicole always teased him growing up, saying how he couldn’t get his nose out of those books. Encyclopedia Brown when he was learning to read, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew soon after, and before fifth grade he was devouring Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle, Sue Grafton and James Patterson, everything their father owned and anything the library could get. While Nicky was kissing boys (and almost immediately after switching to kissing girls and never looking back), Nic was trying his hand at writing his own mysteries, running them by the writing circle at his school, talking to the librarian to ask what she thought, comparing notes with his dad. And this guy was definitely a mystery. Which meant Nic needed another look. 

He heads back, resolved to get a better look. If he wasn’t certain that Halliday would find some way to punish him for it, Nic would fake tripping up, trip over the guy. It would give him a great reason when class was over to run up after the stranger to get more information. 

Nic almost stumbles over the first stair when he starts down. Somehow, he’s gone. The man had disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived, and all while Nic was at the fountain. There’s still time left in class. Where could he have gone and why? He does pause when he sees something. A pen, emblazoned with the college’s logo, lays on the floor by the seat. Not his imagination then. Nic leans down to scoop the pen up before continuing down to his seat. 

Damn, now he’s got another thing to wonder about. 

Who takes math notes in pen?

Nic smiles to himself as he returns to his seat. This is going to be interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

It is a simple enough thing, for all that it is the only tangible clue Nic has in his possession. Very little data to be taken from the pen the mysterious man left. The ink is blue, it’s ballpoint that depressor mechanism rather than a cap, and the writing doesn’t flow so well. This was something that was likely bought en mass, meant to keep a brand in your mind, in this case the brand of course being the college itself. Nic has of course checked the bookstore on the way to the cafeteria for lunch and, for all his searching, he hasn’t found it’s mate offered. That means either the pen is an old design or not for the general public. When inspecting it closely it’s obvious the faux-gold ink used to put the college’s name and seal on the pen is the sort that wears off when used frequently, but here it is, fully intact, suggesting less use. And, when he takes it apart he finds the ink levels barely depleted. New, then, at least in terms of use. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t tell him anything real. 

Nic is no closer to solving the question now than he had been before, and somehow, that doesn’t bother him. 

“If you keep smiling at that pen, I’m going to be worried about you putting it somewhere unpleasant. And also what that would mean about your sexlife would mean I would have to break our oath of no interference.” 

Nic huffs at his sister’s comment, twirling the pen between his fingers. At last he salutes here with it and tucks the thing away into the bookbag at his feet. 

“This feels like a story I need more context for,” Connie says, and while it makes Nicole roll her eyes, Nic is happy to tell it anyway. Just because of how she cringes when he tells the story. 

“Let’s go with the simpler than simple version,” Nicole counters. That’s the version that makes Nic look bad, but he is nothing if not accomodating for his sister, so he gestures for her to go on. “Nic was worried about a guy I was dating in highschool. So he conspired with the guy to set up a double-date. By the end of the night our dates were making out with each other.”

All in all her version makes him laugh. It really wasn’t an accurate description of the thing, but good enough for him to let it stand. That is, with one minor correction. 

“He was her beard,” Nic grins. “So she wasn’t really that upset. ANd it gave her an excuse as for why she said no to other guys for a while. One: overprotective older twin brother on the football team. Two: last guy betrayed her. And I, in return had to swear not to get involved with her love life, or lack of it. A promise she returned. But I do reserve the right to avenger her if if someone breaks her heart.”

The look he gives Connie is pointed, and it gets Nicole to roll her eyes and shift her seat closer to the freshman’s. From what little he knows the two had originally met when Connie was doing a campus tour last year and came to see the facilities the swim team used. Ever since she had started as a student the two had spent most of their time together. Which, of course, is more than Nic can say for him and his twin. Sophomore year is only just starting but he’s seen her at only a few meals at best. This, he has to remind himself, is what she wants. And probably something both of them need. 

“Protective?” Connie asks, an eyebrow raised. Nic gets the question in the world. After all, Connie’s only known about him for about, what was it now, fifteen hours? Dinner last night had been an experience for them all. Nic, on the other hand, has known about Connie since the pair met a second time at a weekend mixer the returning members of the swim team held just before the school year started for incoming scholarship students like Connie. 

“Anyway,” Nicole presses on, clearly wanting to avoid questions of how she could date someone for a while and not tell them about having a twin, “this is just a stupid thing Nic does. Guy has a boner for mysteries, real or imagined. And whatever that pen is, it’s getting Nic’s patented ‘puzzle to solve here’ look.” 

“Oh? I love mysteries!” 

Well that gets Nic not only smiling, but to pull the pwn back out of his pack to hand to Connie. As he does he shoots Nicole a look that he is certain she will read as his ‘I like this one’ look. Sure she doesn’t have much experience with it directed at her choices, but now as ever she gives him an indifferent huff. His approval or disapproval doesn’t really figure into her concerns really, unless it’s time to shop for presents for someone in the family. Still, it’s an acknowledgement that she’s got his point, and with that Nic returns his attention to the pen, twisting and dancing between Connie’s fingers, pausing for the briefest of moments to click the button a few times before spinning again. At last she passes the pen back. 

“It’s just a pen, how is that a mystery?”

“Please don’t start with him, Connie. It isn’t worth it. I would rather listen to your friend David prattle on about his cat Loki. Again. For the five hundredth time.”

“Hush, you. I wanna know how a pen is a mystery,” Connie insists, and with how bright her smile is, Nic doesn’t mind the idea of explaining. Damn the girl is cute, is that what his sister looks for? Well, that doesn’t matter, what does is that if he gets Connie invested in this maybe she will drag Nicole to meals with him more often. 

“The mystery is the guy who dropped it,” Nic answers with a smile that he hopes conveys a sense of the mystery. Must work because Connie is leaning in closer. 

“Of course it’s over a guy. Already over Terrence then I see,” Nicole says, sass in the smirk she grants him. For a moment Connie looks like she’s going to interrupt, but instead she makes a beckoning gesture. An invitation for the whole story. How disappointed is she going to be when he doesn’t have anything particularly interesting to offer her? Is there a way he can talk this up to get her interest? 

His eyes catch Nicole’s, catches her brief warning. No twisting arms, no conning people into things, just none of that. Their lives are too complicated for them to do that. So he just smiles and tells the story like it happened. It’s brief and after that Connie shrugs it off. Apparently not as interesting as Nic wishes it was. The rest of their lunch becomes about Nicole and this girl she can’t stand in one of her classes. 

Still the man lingers in his head, the mystery of it enough to hold Nic’s attention well past the point where the girls had gone off for their next classes. In the end he stays long enough to almost be running late for his class. That timing seems to be the right one, though, because as he’s going down the stairs the mysterious man is there, heading up them with a woman at his side. He wants to run after him, wants to ask who he is. Wants to give back his pen. But class beckons and he can’t exactly give up his education for this. No, the guy is clearly associated with the college, he’ll get a chance to figure it out later.


	3. Chapter 3

“So, you look ready to fall over and it isn’t even noon,” Vanessa observes as they make their way up the spiraling staircase toward the cafeteria. 

“Yeah, well not everyone gets a job that partially involves sitting in an office, hoping kids will show up to ask for help,” Marcus says, regretting it immediately because he knows there is a lot more to her work than that. “Sorry, Nessa, I…”

“Haven’t had nearly enough sleep. No surprise,” she supplies. They finally reach the woman handling the register for entering the cafeteria and Vanessa immediately waves Marcus’s hand from his bag. Her treat then, and he has no reason to argue against that. In the end she has greater cause to spot him on a meal than he does for her. With Nessa he flashes his employee badge for their discount, and then they are through. His is so heading straight for the sandwich station, because he needs a good reuben right now and is going to bask in that mound of meat and ‘kraut as well as a huge mound of fries. 

“What this time?” she asks as she leads Marcus toward the station. “Did Sarge keep you late yesterday or…”

“Daniel’s sick,” he sighs, and the reminder of that has him fishing out his phone. No new texts since the one a couple of hours ago, which means Daniel is still asleep. Which is good because if there is any luck in this world, which Marcus rarely finds to be true, he will make it back before Daniel wakes so he can make sure there is food ready for him first thing. “Came on sorta suddenly last night. He woke me at three when he woke up feeling really bad, and I have been running around since. We didn’t have chicken noodle soup, can you believe it? So late night run to the Wal-Mart and then helping him get to sleep took a while.”

“And you didn’t take the day off?” Vanessa ask in horror. “Marcus!”

“You know D, do you really think he would have let me stay home with him?”

All it takes is a raised hand and a nod to Bitters behind the counter and his sandwich is being processed. Bless Bitters, Marcus thinks to himself not for the first time. Guy remembers just about every order that comes to him, which means Marcus can have his bi-weekly meal with Vanessa and not have to break the flow of her latest ranting at him. Breaking up the flow of these lectures usually means that they get to go on longer. Too much longer for most people to handle. Sometimes Marcus can handle that. More often than not, though, he will jump in there, just to see her work to get herself back up to steam. After how little sleep he got the night before, though, he has no intention of extended lecture. 

“You’re the adult, Marcus,” Vanessa hisses at him, turning to glare at him while Bitters works on their meals. “If Daniel is sick then you make the choice to stay home, not him. Who is going to help him if a fever gets too high?”

“Mrs. Chalmers has a key to the apartment and checks in every few hours. D has both me and her on speed dial. He also has Sarge’s number if there is an emergency and he can’t reach me directly. There is a whole plethora of drinks at his bedside table for him to drink if he’s thirsty and even if he’s not because he knows to hydrate. There is also a pack each of pudding, jello and applesauce, and a sleeve of saltines. Geez, Nessa, you act like I haven’t been dealing with colds for years now. If it was a flu or stomach thing I would be home. Instead I am making money as any good single father should. Keeping me in the funds to keep putting new ridiculous stick figure family decals on the car when we’re bored.”

“Which now?” she asks, knowing that the argument is done. She won’t win unless she’s willing to take the day off herself to take care of Daniel. And when it comes to it the thirteen-year-old is probably better suited to it than she will ever be. 

“My dinosaur thinks your stick figure family is tasty,” Marcus smiles. Daniel had found it online and as the kid likes dinosaurs and paleontology as much as he does computers, he was eager for it. 

At least Vanessa laughs at that. She turns her attention back to Bitters who cuts her wrap in half, arranges it on a plate, and puts a bag of chips next to it. For half a second Marcus holds out hope that she’ll drop the subject of Daniel entirely now that she has food, or at least walk over to the salad bar to get herself some fruit. Instead she lingers, her very presence inviting more, intended to bait Marcus into talking. Which he isn’t going to do. 

“It’s not weak to ask for help,” she says, her voice a whisper. Marcus hears it anyway. 

Normally she says that as an offer. Normally Marcus has no issue politely declining and then inviting her to dinner with him and D later in the week, with her cooking enough for three people to eat for days. Longer as it’s usually only the two of them. 

Normally he’s had more sleep. 

“Help? You’re totally right. Why didn’t I think about that? Maybe I should ask for help, like just tell children’s protective services that I can’t handle him, please take Daniel away. Sounds great. Oh, wait, was that not what you meant? Okay then, ask for help, what does that mean? Why should I do, get a job? Wait, I’ve already got a job. Get a better job? Hard to do without a degree. Which I don’t have enough hours in a day to take classes to achieve. Not with work and taking care of Daniel. Or o you mean something else? Because right now the help I can use is to have a pen because I think I dropped mine in Professor Halliday’s lecture hall earlier.”

Normally he has more patience because he has more sleep. 

“I’ll be by tonight with pizza,” Vanessa says after a moment, just as Bitters is passing the reuben over. 

“Hawaiian?” 

“Of course, I know you like it best.”

And rarely got it as Daniel finds something morally repugnant about pineapple on pizza. Daniel’s words of course, not Marcus’s. The kid has an insane vocabulary. These days Marcus only gets his favorite when Daniel is spending a night with friends and Vanessa was feeling generous at the same time. If it was a Thursday there might even be a roast instead of pizza because she would have a lighter class load, but as for today Marcus doesn’t mind. His friend has to teach, and he’s got so much to do to get through the day. 

“Oh, and here. Some other help.”

Vanessa smiles as she pulls a pen from her pocket, another one of those wonderful pens the faculty seems to be able to produce at a whim. A perfect replacement for the one he lost this morning. A pen to match every other one she’s given him these last two weeks. 

“I should just give you the whole box of them,” she chuckles. 

“And I would just lose them faster. Oh well, some student or janitor is going to have this nice pen too when I lose it. Provided Daniel doesn’t take it first.”

“Seriously, I’m going to have to tie a pen to your wrist so you stop losing them, aren’t I?”

Marcus laughs, because she always says that and she never does. Not that either of them case. Losing a pen doesn’t really amount to anything other than needing a new pen after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And for this chapter we get to meet York's younger brother who clearly is the adult in this relationship.

There is a certain, special sort of bone deep weariness that comes with those last few steps toward his apartment door. A weariness formed at the intersection of ‘my last coffee was four hours ago’ and ‘still have to cook dinner, do laundry, and look over homework.’ The sort of tired so deep in the body that raising the proper key to the lock seems impossible. Perhaps it even is. 

A feeling that always fades when the door closes behind him and he calls out into the apartment that he’s home. 

“Danny, I’m home,” Marcus whispers as he steps over the threshold and closes the apartment door behind him. Most days he flips the lock, but if Nessa is anywhere near as predictable as she is most days, she will be here soon and he doesn’t want knocking to wake Daniel if the kid is still asleep. Simple fact of the matter is that he isn’t given the fact that the lights of the apartment were all out, even the ones back where the bedrooms are. 

It means he has half a moment to just breathe. Catch his breath after another godawful long day. The boiler had given out in Bisman, there had been a cracked window at Dover, and he doesn’t even want to think about the incident with the table in Stevenson Hall. At least he only managed to lose a single pen today. Probably means he’s been rather lucky in the grand scheme. 

With that thought Marcus drops his bag by the door, self-inflicted homework can wait, and he heads toward the larger of the two bedrooms with his arms still full with the weight of his other burden. He’s careful as he navigates through the darkened apartment not to make too much noise. Try, of course, is the operative word there, because as Yoda said, something something no try only do. While he moves rather stealthily for the most part, when he gets to the last few paces to the door that is his target his foot abruptly comes into contact with something hard and unexpected. Well, it should be expected because the little table that he kicks the leg of has been there since they moved in. Only difference is that now it’s covered with more junk and knickknacks than ever before. Equally expected is how his cursing leads almost immediately to a light in the room beyond the door going on. 

“York?” 

His nickname comes as a weak call and Marcus bites his lip to resist more expletives while he limps forward. Good news is that apparently the bedroom door isn’t being an ass and getting stuck when he tries to open it today. Bad news is that even as he fumbles the door open one of the textbooks in his arms slips from his grip and falls. 

Good news, it misses his toes. 

“Hey Danny,” Marcus greets with a concerned smile shoved in place. He takes a moment to stoop and grab up the fallen textbook (history and given he’s nearly smashed his toe with this very book before he wonders if he should stop carrying it) then moves to Daniel’s bedside. “Brought you your favorite after-school snack.”   
  
“Homework?” his brother asks as he squirms to get himself upright in his bed. “How exciting.”

Not for the first time Marcus is struck by the strange incongruity--Daniel’s word of course--that his kid brother presents. Of course today it’s a bit more obvious than it sometimes can be. Normally Daniel has an undeniable presence in a room, one that reminds Marcus of their mother. His brother is thirteen going on twenty-five and he always acts like he’s ready for the world and anything it can throw at them. Right now, though, he looks so small tucked into his bed, his nose all red and puffy from blowing it, his hair tousled, wearing his dinosaur pajamas (which he would never admit to owning of course) which were wrinkled after such long use. Mostly Daniel looks so tired and so small, not at all like the kid who had to grow up far too fast. 

_ If I had been better at this, he wouldn’t have had to give up his childhood. If Mom and Kyle hadn’t… _

No. He refuses to finish that thought. Self-pity over having to be a single dad had been thrown out with much of the rest of the trash in his life almost five years ago. 

“Mrs. McGrady wrote she hopes you feel better soon. Says without you her life is boring. She is forced to teach only idiots all day. Oh woe is her!”

For all that Daniel tries to keep a stern look, he manages to crack a smile for Marcus. As if to soothe Marcus’s ego over the joke not actually being funny, which is sad because it’s hilarious and the kid has no real sense for these things. Still, it feels amazing in his book to know he’s able to earn smiles from the kid. 

“What did she really say?” Daniel asks, holding his hands out for the folder on the top of the book pile. 

Marcus heaves an excessive sigh over his ‘defeat’ by the forces of maturity and passes the folder containing Daniel’s notes for the day and homework assignments from the teachers. 

“That she spoke with a high and mighty English teacher of yours, made sure they weren’t assigning you extra makeup work out of spite. Seriously, Danny, am I going to be called in for a parent-teacher conference by that guy? Because frankly it’s deplorable the way you have failed to get this teacher to lick your boots like all the others you’ve ever had,” Marcus answers with a feigned sigh of disappointment. 

“Deplorable your word of the day?” Daniel counters with a triumphant little smirk as he looks over the homework sheets. 

Frankly Marcus is happy he managed to get that list for Daniel. Sometimes he just can’t find the time for it. Sarge is so getting a six-pack left on his desk from a secret admirer before the weekend as thanks for letting Marcus duck out for a bit to pick Danny’s things up. 

“Word of the day,” Marcus confirms. “You’re a scoundrel to insist that I have that think up in my locker at work. Seriously though kid, don’t avoid the question. What’s up with Mr. Cole?”

The dark look in his brother’s eyes is a rare one and Marcus braces himself for the pending cutting commentary. It isn’t often that Daniel uses his powers for ‘evil’ as it were, but Marcus knows something has to be coming to have this reaction. The only question is just what got his brother so worked up.

“Mister My-Parents-Hated-Me-Enough-To-Name-Me-Flynt Cole is a pompous, self-righteous, grandiose, self-important nit-wit who thinks that just because he’s read some books he’s a cultural idol to whom we should aspire to please and emulate, and…”

Oh boy, a full head of steam right there. Marcus reaches forward and lays a hand over Daniel’s, which even now was clutching angrily at the sheets. That stops the tirade in its tracks an Daniel’s face gets a little red. Offsets the vivid green of his eyes well and someday that is going to get his brother a lot of romantic attention, but Marcus knows better than to comment on that now. 

“So, which of our three hot-button topics did he go for? Disdain for you reading Cross Access, getting testy over your green pen, or the usual English teacher disrespect for STEM focused students like you?” Marcus asks. The first usually gets Daniel tetchy if he is doing a reread of his dystopian cyberpunk favorite. The second is a personal touch of Daniel’s and Marcus and the school have an understanding that provided Daniel didn’t use green beyond his notes without a teacher’s okay there would be no issues. If there was Marcus gets to go in and raise hell again. The third… is always hard to deal with. 

“He has a list of books we can use for mandatory book reviews for the school year. All your standard high school literature fodder,” Daniel starts, and Marcus has to shudder. 

‘Literature’ isn’t quite a dirty word in their home but for Marcus it kind of is. He still remembers the arguments he and his dad got into over the ‘proper forms of reading’ for a child of his. Apparently comics hadn’t countered. Still, that isn’t quite enough for Daniel to have such a strong dislike for a teacher. Or for Mrs. McGrady to have specifically left a note for Marcus. That woman has been looking out for Daniel for years, even had been when Daniel was in elementary school. As she was an old friend of their mother she had made very sure Marcus could have someone to help him figure out how to be supportive of his brother’s school life. To intervene like this after all these years means that more has to be going on than just book selection. 

“And?” Marcus prompts as he turns his attention to Daniel’s bedside table and reaches for a sports drink. Daniel handles honesty in the face of awkwardness better when he doesn’t have someone staring at him. The things you learn to do when you’re a parent, because it seems to work every time. 

“I noticed Fahrenheit 451 wasn’t on there and I asked if he got too many reports on that one. And he went on a diatribe about the book and how it was unsuitable and how he forbid it from his class!”

Clearly Marcus is supposed to react to this but he really isn’t familiar with the book. When he passes the now opened bottle to Daniel, though, he can see the righteous fury in his brother’s eyes. That he can manage that much heat this evening is a good sign for how he’s recovering. Take the small blessings in anything you can, he’s learned.

“York, it’s a book about the dangers of banning and burning books. And he’s banned it. I asked him how he could begin to justify such a thing!”

No wonder there is tension there. No adult wants a ‘child’ criticizing their decisions. Seems like he really is going to have to figure out how to approach the teacher about this situation. Perhaps it would be better to go to the principal. There is a serious difference between not using a book and outright forbidding it, Marcus definitely gets that much. In the meantime he has more immediately things to deal with. 

“I’ll see how I can take care of it, Danny. But right now I’m going to go make you some soup. Is there anything else I can get you?” he asks as he gets to his feet. Deal with bad teachers another time, right now he has to take care of Danny’s health. 

“Lemon and honey tea? And pull my bookbag over?”

Not his favorite thing to make, or even the best idea for how Danny can pass time, but Marcus nods as he stands. “Easily done, my captain. But don’t push yourself too hard on the homework, alright?”

Daniel nods right back but doesn’t look up from the worklist. The fire seems gone in the face of his normal academic drive. “York? When you get to the kitchen tell Nessa I said hi, thank her for making me the tea, and ask when she’s going to do us all a favor and marry you out of some misguided sense of pity for her best friend.”

When he opens his mouth to protest Marcus finds himself cut off by the sound of someone moving in the apartment. Well, hard to argue against Danny’s points when he’s clearly right. Sometimes, though, he really wishes Daniel would let him be the responsible adult when he needs to be. But that’s something he can ask for later. The pizza is calling to him and he needs to make sure he gets Danny fed to. There will be time later. 

The words make him bite his lip and Marcus leans down to hug his brother and kiss the top of his head. There isn’t always time later, he reminds himself. Better to show your feelings while you can. While Daniel grumbles at how awkward it is for York to get affectionate all the time Marcus retreats from the room to go figure out just what Nessa is up to.


End file.
